Backup and restore

This topic provides information about backup and restore options.

Backup

For paid plans, encrypted backups of the database are done daily. A daily backup is kept for each of the last 14 days by default.

All paid plans use Azure Blob Storage to keep backups offsite and secure.

Backups can be scheduled to run at a time of day that is most convenient for your business. The scheduled time may take up to 2 hours to take effect.

Self-service snapshot backups are supported. Users can manually trigger an on-demand backup or rely on automated scheduling. In addition to daily snapshots, weekly backups are created automatically for additional disaster recovery coverage. These are stored in Azure Blob Storage.

The following is an example of the on-demand backup operation in the web console UI:

  1. Click Administration in the left menu and select the Backups tab. Click the Run backup button.

    Figure 1. Backup and restore console page
    Backup and restore console page

  2. Click Run to run an on-demand backup.

    Figure 2. Run on-demand backup
    Backup and restore console page

  3. After backup completion, a new backup entry in the list of backups appears as a ondemand type. The new backup will be in an available state.

    Figure 3. Backup and restore console page
    Backup and restore console page

Backup Retention Management

This feature allows users to run procedures that modify the retention period for snapshot backups.

While Db2® SaaS BYOC supports retaining a large number of snapshots—effectively unlimited—you can reduce the number of retained snapshots to help manage storage costs.

Snapshots are billed based on the total storage consumed. Retaining more snapshots increases your storage footprint and associated charges.

Tip: Best Practice: For most environments, retaining daily snapshots for the past seven to thirty days strikes a good balance between recovery flexibility and cost efficiency.
Attention: To ensure our product remains compliant with various standards, at least one backup will be retained at all times.

The backup process captures data stored on block storage volumes and cloud object storage. Each backup consists of:

  • Snapshots of block storage volumes, which preserve the state of the data at a specific point in time.
  • Associated metadata, required for recovery and integrity validation.

These components are stored in an Azure Blob Storage container within your designated storage account. This ensures durability, availability, and compliance with cloud storage best practices.

Attention: Backup storage usage is calculated based on the total size of the snapshots and metadata stored in Azure Blob Storage.

Restore

All paid plans use Azure Blob Storage to keep backups offsite and secure.

For information about point-in-time restores, see Point-in-time restore.

Self-service snapshot restore is available. You can choose which snapshot to restore, or trigger a restore from a specific point in time if point-in-time recovery is enabled.

  1. Click Administration in the left menu and select the Backups tab. Select a backup that you want to restore to end-of-backup and click Restore.

    Figure 4. Backup and restore console page
    Backup and restore console page

  2. Click Restore to initiate the restore.

    Figure 5. Run restore
    Backup and restore console page

  3. An information message appears when the restore process has started. Some features might not be available until restore is completed.

  4. Notification will show a Restore success! message after the restore has completed.

Point-in-time restore

Point-in-time restore is supported. You can restore to an exact point in time based on archived transaction logs backed up to Azure Blob Storage. This allows for recovery to a specific timestamp, helping to minimize data loss from recent changes.

You can choose a point in time from the past retention window (7, 14, or 30 days) and the system will restore using the closest matching snapshot. The restore operation invalidates all backups that were created after the selected point in time, as the timeline diverges.

1. Click Administration in the left menu and select the Backups tab.

2. Click the down arrow beside the Run backup button. Select Restore (point-in-time).

Backup and restore console page

3. Select a point-in-time date to which you want to restore the database. The system selects the backup closest to your requested point-in-time date from the pool of retained backups made during the previous retention window.

The point-in-time restore process invalidates any previously retained backups with dates after the selected point due to divergence in the timeline.

Backup and restore console page

4. A progress bar will be displayed, showing the restore of the database to the selected point in time.

5. Once completed, a success notification will be displayed indicating the restore was successful.